I Hate The Sun, and We Have to Save America From It.

In 2007, Slate inaugurated the A Fine Whine column, in which a Slate writer lets fly at some (usually petty) annoyance for a couple of pages. It came infrequently at first, but its been appearing more and more often lately, and, at the risk of imitating what’s bugging me, it’s starting to make my back teeth itch.

Reason? It’s enervating when young, reasonably successful people sound like the fogeys who protested WKRP’s changeover to rock and roll:

Carlson: …We had a group of crackpots over there. They were attacking everything. They were attacking rock and roll, WKRP, me, and pay toilets.

Having said that. I know that Slate‘s running columns about why its writers hate dogs and fireworks because they’re click and comment bait. So, whore that I am, I’ll tell you right now that I hate the Sun, and I don’t care who knows it. I hate its prominences, and I hate its stupid flares that mess with my cell phone. Who likes skin cancer? Am I right? And where does the overrated Sun get off taking up exactly the same amount of sky as the vastly superior Moon? Think of the Moon. It’s got phases and craters and shades, and sometimes it doesn’t appear in the sky at all, allowing us an unobstructed view of the universe. The Moon is the total package of celestial objects. What’s the Sun got? It’s bright. And it the only reason it looks good rising or setting is because of assists from the Earth’s clouds and humanity’s smog, while the Moon’s awesome on its own merits.

Shakespeare’s Juliet knew what she was talking about. The goddamn sun is garish, and if all the world isn’t in love with night, it damn well should be. You know who else was on to something? Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, who hit it right on the snout when he said that for centuries mankind has yearned to destroy the Sun. If anyone wants to get a Kickstarter project going to build Mr. Burns’s giant sun blocker, my $10 is in, baby. Give me the T-shirt.